Here is what drivers had to say after Sunday’s Cup race at Sonoma Raceway:
Shane van Gisbergen — Winner: “This is amazing. This is why we go racing. I had a great time. It’s awesome to have Red Bull on the car this weekend. Trackhouse Racing gave me a great Chevrolet again. What a great couple of weeks! Just to execute, make no mistakes, have great pit stops, great strategy and be able to hold them off there at the end – it’s incredible. Chase (Briscoe) was driving really well. We had a lot of fun there. … On the last restart, I thought he (Briscoe) jumped a little bit. I was just trying to do what I could to get in position in Turn 2. That last one, I had to give him a bit of rub, but that was it. I’m just over the moon.”
Shane van Gisbergen ties mark set by Jeff Gordon for consecutive road course wins from the pole with Sonoma victory.
Chase Briscoe — Finished 2nd: “I don’t know if I really saw everything (Shane van Gisbergen) had, truthfully. I felt like every time I would get close; he would just start driving back away. We were definitely the second-best car. I don’t really know what more I need – maybe a little bit a grip, but even if I had a little more grip, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to gain the speed that he had. But overall, great day for the Bass Pro Shops Toyota. This is by far my worst race track, so to run second to him, it definitely means a lot, so proud of the day.”
Chase Elliott — Finished 3rd: “I’m not sure if there was dirt across the track or what, but it happened a couple of times throughout the day. I was obviously pushing really hard. I just got sliding and ran out of road, but I don’t know that it would have been enough anyways, to be honest. I wasn’t near as good that run than the run before. I’m not really sure why that was, but the call by Alan (Gustafson, crew chief) was great. It was nice to be on offense and give ourselves a shot. I wish I could have made it happen there. I was trying, but I just couldn’t get going like we needed to there at the end. We had a really fast No. 9 NAPA Chevrolet all day. I thought we were really solid. We probably needed a little bit more to get Shane (Van Gisbergen) and Chase (Briscoe).”
Michael McDowell — Finished 4th: “We needed a little bit more pace out of our No. 71 Gainbridge Chevrolet. We had Project Zin on the car today, which was really cool. Qualifying really hurt us. I think we had decent pace, but we weren’t fast enough to get around the good cars. We got off strategy there, and that didn’t work. Thankfully, we caught a caution and we were able to tires on our Chevrolet and fight our way back. We salvaged a top-five day, but that’s not what we need. We all know what we need to do, and we just weren’t quite good enough to do it today. But this is part of the process. You have good weeks and bad weeks. Last weekend (at Chicago), we had a car that could win. Today, we were a little off. We’ll keep building on it.”
Christopher Bell — Finished 5th: “We worked really good there as Toyota teammates and (Tyler Reddick) was just talking there about that last lap. I don’t know what else he does, or I do – we are racing for a top-five, a position there, and I took the lane, and he chose not to ship me. I appreciated that. Tires versus no tires, offense versus defense there at the end of the last lap. Tough to race respectful whenever you are out like that, and I get it.”
Tyler Reddick — Finished 6th: “Today was a bit of a struggle honestly for the Chumba Casino Toyota. We just kind of went backwards – we slid back throughout the whole day and didn’t really get stage points. We just kept fighting all day long. We put tires on there and was able to get through the chaos. We had a shot at fifth, just didn’t want to use Christopher (Bell) up on that last corner, so we settled for sixth.”
Ty Gibbs — Finished 7th: “Overall, we had an okay day. Our SAIA No. 54 Camry – we needed to make some adjustments, and I need to do a better job. We had an okay day.”
Kyle Busch — Finished 10th: “We had to come from behind all day with our zone Chevrolet. On the initial start, our car had no drive or rear lateral any direction. After falling to the back, Randall (Burnett) and the guys made the call for major chassis adjustments to get the rears working. Those adjustments definitely helped, just wished I could have had that same adjustment again without giving up the track position. We kept working on the balance and in Stage 3, the car was the best it had been. It was simply avoiding wrecks at the end. Proud of the No. 8 team for pushing through and getting a top-10 finish.”
Ty Dillon — Finished 17th: “It was a rough couple of laps there. Alex (Bowman) and I race really clean. I told him – man, if it wasn’t for the million dollars, I probably wouldn’t have done that, but I had to. It’s been an incredible run for this No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet team. We’ve worked so hard for this opportunity. I can’t thank Matt Kaulig, Chris Rice, Ty Norris and Kaulig Racing for giving me the opportunity to shine again. I’ve worked so hard to get here and I’m just grateful. All of our partners that are on board, this has just been so much fun. We’re going to give it all we’ve got at Dover; put pressure on the guys. I think you’ve seen through this that our team doesn’t quit. I saw the No. 48 there at the end, and I knew it was our opportunity to race hard and go get him. Just proud of this team’s effort.”
Ty Dillon, John Hunter Nemechek, Tyler Reddick and Ty Gibbs remain in race for $1 million.
Austin Dillon Finished 21st: “It was a hard battle for the No. 3 Bass Pro Shops / Winchester Chevrolet team. We didn’t really have a lot of speed this weekend, but we did make it better. We made some adjustments mid-race, and then those cautions came out. I had to go through the grass and lost around 15 spots. We got a couple back there at the end, but it’s not what we wanted. We’ll keep digging. We’ve had some good Chevrolet’s the last couple of weekends. Unfortunately, this week, we weren’t as good as we’ve been, but we’ll get better.”
Cole Custer — Finished 23rd: “Definitely a hard-fought day. I felt like we had speed in the car, but we just had a few things go wrong for us and it didn’t work out. I feel like we’re moving in the right direction of having cars that can go out there and compete, it’s just a matter of doing all the little things right.”
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